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Otto Lutz
Hauptmann Otto Lutz is a Heer officer of the 21st Panzer Division. He joins four British soldiers as they are trying to make their way back to British lines. He is posing as a South African Captain under the assumed name of, van der Poel. He carries a huge backpack with him and manages to be allowed on board the British vehicle when he produces two bottles of gin from it. Unknown to the British is that it also contains a radio. Twice the group encounters motorised elements of the advancing Afrika Korps; in one encounter they are fired upon, and Sister Denise Norton is fatally wounded. Van der Poel, who claims to have learned German while working in South West Africa, is able to talk the Germans into allowing them to go on their way. The second time however, the Germans seem reluctant, until Van der Poel shows them the contents of his backpack. This pack becomes the focus of suspicion. Tom Pugh, already troubled by Van der Poel's lack of knowledge of the South African Army's tea-brewing technique, follows him when he heads off into the desert with his pack and a spade (supposedly to dig a latrine). Pugh thinks he sees an antenna. Later, at night, they decide to use the ambulance headlights to see what Van de Poel is really up to. He panics, blunders into some quicksand, and buries his pack, though not before Anson and Diana Murdoch see that it contains a radio set. They drag him to safety. While he recovers, they realise he is probably a German spy but decide not to confront him about this. During the final leg of the journey Katy must be hand-cranked in reverse up an escarpment, and Van der Poel's strength is again crucial to achieving this. When they reach Alexandria they make their way to a bar where Anson orders a cold beer, consumed with a relish which creates the most memorable scene and the poster image of the film. But before they have drunk their first round, a Corps of Military Police officer arrives to arrest Van der Poel. Anson, who had prearranged this at a checkpoint as they entered the city, orders him to wait. Having become friends with Van der Poel and indebted to him for saving the group's lives, Anson tells him that if he gives his real name, he will be treated as a prisoner of war, rather than as a spy (which would mean execution by firing squad). Van der Poel admits to being Hauptmann Otto Lutz, an engineering officer with the 21st Panzer Division. Pugh notices that Lutz is still wearing fake South African dog tags and rips them off before the police see them. Lutz, after saying his farewells and concluding that they were "all against the desert, the greater enemy", is driven away, with a new respect for the British. Gallery Otto Lutz.png Murdoch, Otto Lutz, and Pugh..png|Murdoch, Otto Lutz, and Pugh. Lutz, Otto Lutz, Otto Lutz, Otto Lutz, Otto Lutz, Otto Lutz, Otto Lutz, Otto Lutz, Otto Lutz, Otto Lutz, Otto Lutz, Otto Lutz, Otto